four hundred _librae_ or more; if he had less, one fourth of all
he possessed was forfeit. The same penalties held for the wife who
presumed to dismiss her husband without the offences legally recognised
existing. The forfeited money was at the free disposal of the blameless
party if there were no children; these being extant, the property must
be preserved intact for their inheritance and merely the usufruct could
be enjoyed by the trustees. A woman who secured a divorce through a
fault of her husband had always to wait at least a year before marrying
again _propter seminis confusionem_.[253]

[Sidenote: Justin revokes decrees of Justinian.]

Justin, the nephew and successor of Justinian, reaffirmed the right to
divorce by mutual consent, thus abrogating the laws of his
predecessors.[254] Justinian had ordained that if husband and wife
separated by mutual consent, they were to be forced to spend the rest of
their lives in a convent and forfeit to it one third of their
goods.[255] Justin, then, made the pious efforts of his uncle naught.
Nothing can more clearly illustrate than his decree how small a power
the Church still possessed to mould the tenor of the law; for such a
thing as divorce by mutual consent, without any necessary reason, was a
serious misdemeanour in the eyes of the Church Fathers, who passed upon
it their severest censures.

[Sidenote: Adultery.]

On the subject of adultery Justinian enacted that if the husband was the
guilty party, the dowry and marriage donations must be given his wife;
but the rest of his property accrued to his relatives, both in ascending
and descending lines, to the third degree; these failing, his goods
were confiscated to the royal purse.[256] A woman guilty of adultery was
at once sent to a monastery. After a space of two years her husband
could take her back again, if he so wished, without prejudice. If he did
not so desire, or if he died, the woman was shorn and forced to spend
the rest of her life in a nunnery; two thirds of her property were given
to her relatives in descending line, the other third to the monastery;
if there were no descendants, ascendants got one third and the monastery
two thirds; relatives failing, the monastery took all; and in all cases
goods inserted in the dowry contract were to be kept for the
husband.[257]

[Sidenote: Second marriages.]
[Sidenote: Strict laws of Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius.]

The legislation of the earlier Chris